Somatosensitive film soft crawling robots driven by artificial muscle for load carrying and multi-terrain locomotion

Somatosensitive soft crawling robotics is highly desired for load carrying and multi-terrain locomotion. The motor-driven skeleton robots and pneumatic robots are effective and well-developed, while the bulk size, rigidity, or complexity limit their applications. In this paper, a somatosensitive fil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials horizons 2021-06, Vol.8 (6), p.1783-1794
Main Authors: Liu, Zhongsheng, Zhang, Rui, Xiao, Yicheng, Li, Jiatian, Chang, Wang, Qian, Dong, Liu, Zunfeng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Artificial muscles
Control systems design
Deformation
Feedback control
Locomotion
Muscles
Robot control
Robot dynamics
Robotics
Robots
Terrain
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Summary:Somatosensitive soft crawling robotics is highly desired for load carrying and multi-terrain locomotion. The motor-driven skeleton robots and pneumatic robots are effective and well-developed, while the bulk size, rigidity, or complexity limit their applications. In this paper, a somatosensitive film soft crawling robot driven by an artificial muscle was developed, which can carry heavy loads and crawl on multiple terrains. A bow-shaped film skeleton connected with a twisted-fiber artificial muscle is not easily deformed while carrying a load. A strain sensor coating on the film skeleton was used to detect the body deformation of the robot and a controller was designed for feedback control to make the robot self-crawling. This film soft crawling robot was demonstrated to crawl on the multi-terrain such as flat, mountainous, and underwater, as well as surfaces with different roughness. This work provides a new design strategy for multi-functional compact soft crawling robotics. Film soft crawling robot driven by twisted fiber artificial muscle for load carrying and multi-terrain locomotion.
ISSN:2051-6347
2051-6355
DOI:10.1039/d1mh00457c